The Calling
by neaira.awakened
Summary: Taking place roughly 30 years after the Blight, Kira Cousland feels herself slipping away and wishes to seek her end in the Deep Roads, and runs into an unlikely person in the process...


Kira Cousland stretched as a slight breeze rustled the flaps of her tent. She opened her eyes and sighed. She had set up camp outside the great Dwarven city of Orzammar the evening prior, weary from a day's travel. Thirty years ago, she would have marched straight on through to the city before giving in to the fatigue. Now she found her stamina ebbing away. She felt herself ebbing away. Was this the Calling? It had to be. The darkspawn filled nightmares had returned with a vengeance. She felt something within her changing. She felt compelled to seek her end, and the Deep Roads called to her.

The Grey Warden sat up in her tent and opened the flap, flooding herself with the light and warmth of the day. It was mornings like this that she missed him the most. Alistair. He greeted the day with an enthusiasm she could never match. She'd often wake up and find him outside by the dying campfire, meticulously shining his armor.

And that smile… that coy, knowing smile he saved for her eyes only. She missed the warm feel of his body against hers…

A wolf's howl somewhere in the distance jarred Kira back to the present. She felt supremely alone in that moment. Quickly, she packed up her camp and set her sights on the hike toward Orzammar. She would reach the city by early afternoon if she kept a steady pace.

"Off we go, then," she whispered to herself.

There was something intensely liberating about making this journey alone. She was the daughter of Teryn Bryce Cousland, after all. Growing up in a castle meant constant supervision. Then, when Duncan saved her after that bastard Howe murdered her family… well, she had found herself thrown in with a motley crew.

And she had found Alistair, the handsome ex-Templar who managed to heal her broken heart with his simple gift of a rose one night. That gesture had given her the boost she needed to forge ahead. If love could blossom in the darkest of times, anything was possible.

In the years since the Blight, the Grey Warden had found herself in constant company. Ferelden was large, but news of the archdemon's defeat traveled fast. Kira would forever hold notoriety as one of the wardens that defeated the archdemon, but it was Alistair's sacrifice on the top of Fort Drakon that truly ended the Blight. Kira spent the first few years berating would-be revelers for their blatant disregard of his death. She had always felt that her beloved's sacrifice was greatly overlooked, especially by Queen Anora, whom she had helped put on the throne. In time, the emptiness felt less like the sharp stab of a blade to her heart, and she would just smile and nod when she was approached.

Yes, solitude was a welcome change. It gave her time to think, to remember. She even found herself imagining what could have been, if they had met before Ostagar, before they were Grey Wardens. Perhaps she'd have bumped into Alistair in Denerim one day. Their eyes would meet and he'd have given her that smile.

"My apologies, my lady," he would softly say.

"No harm done," she imagined herself saying, supplying a coy smile of her own.

Kira sighed, once again jarred to the present and suddenly aware of a presence behind her.

"What comes, my friend?"

Kira halted in her tracks. The voice was as familiar as it had been those thirty years earlier. She turned.

"Morrigan," she whispered. "Maker's breath, is that you?"

Morrigan, a daughter of the Witch of the Wilds, had been an unlikely friend for Kira. At first, they could barely stand each other, trading barbs and arguing over every little decision Kira had to make. But, the unexpected happened, and the two young women began warming to each other. They became friends. No, they were like sisters.

The night before the final battle, Morrigan had come to Kira with a proposition. She offered a way out from inevitable sacrifice. None of the Grey Wardens would have to die… if Kira could get Alistair to sleep with Morrigan and conceive a child. The child would become a vessel for the archdemon's life force, containing the essence of an old god, and Morrigan would disappear and raise the child as she wished. If she refused, Morrigan would leave immediately. The choice was Kira's to make.

Kira had been tempted by the offer, but could not bring herself to comply with Morrigan's request. Morrigan left that night, an act that hurt Kira more than she cared to admit. She never expected to see her again, and yet, her she was before her. She was older now, of course, but she had the same burning, yellow eyes.

"Hello, old friend," Morrigan said. "It's been… a long time."

"Thirty years, give or take," Kira smiled. "You're old."

Morrigan threw her head back and laughed.

"You are not exactly a bastion of youth, you know," Morrigan lilted. "But let us not waste time on such trivialities. Let us walk. You are going to Orzammar, are you not?"

Kira nodded, and the women continued up the path in silence for a time. Kira glanced at Morrigan and shook her head to herself. Morrigan still had that overreaching confidence about her, and that mysterious air still hung around her like an invisible barrier. Time had been kind to Morrigan – her beauty had not faded as the years passed – but there was something different about her. What was it, exactly? She seemed more human, yes, but there was something else.

"Morrigan, where have you been all of this time?" Kira asked, breaking the silence.

"I have been everywhere and nowhere," Morrigan replied. "I told you once that I wanted to see the mountains, the oceans. I have traveled the farthest corners and back, and basked in my freedom from Mother. It has been a most satisfying existence."

"There is something changed about you," the Grey Warden said. "I can't quite put my finger on it."

"Changed? I suppose I have changed, yes," Morrigan spoke slowly, deliberately. "I have spent these past years thinking about our parting. I have regretted leaving the way I did. You were my first true friend, my sister, really. I… should not have left as I did."

"You should have stayed, Morrigan," Kira said quietly. "At least until the end."

Morrigan frowned, and cautiously reached her hand to Kira.

"I was not deserving of the friendship we shared, and for that, I am sorry."

Kira shook her head, and sighed.

"No… things happened the way they were meant to happen. I cannot fault you for doing what you told me you were going to do, after all."

Morrigan's lips turned upward in a small smile.

"I suppose we were both too headstrong for our own good," Morrigan hesitated. "Was it hard for you? After, I mean… when Alistair died... You loved that fool, for reasons I still cannot comprehend."

Kira looked up to the sky, watching the trees sway in the gentle breeze. Her eyes burned with tears she couldn't bring herself to shed.

"I never intended for him to die. I had every intention of delivering the last blow myself, but he wouldn't let me do it. He saved my life, and I made the most of it. It was when I stopped moving that it was difficult. And now, all I feel is the inevitability of my own death."

Morrigan watched her old friend.

"You intend to meet your end in the Deep Roads."

Kira nodded, "The taint is consuming me. I feel less like myself with each passing day."

Morrigan looked away, moisture building around her eyes.

"I thought as much when I saw you walking today," Morrigan said. "You walked with such purpose. I can sense the darkness in you. My friend, I just wanted to see you this last time. I thought of you often… and I never stopped thinking of you as my sister."

"We will always be sisters," Kira said.

The women continued together on to Orzammar, parting ways once they reached the interior of the city. Morrigan had taken one last look at her old friend before turning sharply and disappearing into a shop.

Kira felt the taint growing the closer she was to the Deep Roads. By the time she reached the blockade, it was all she could do to keep from unsheathing her sword. The dwarven guards let her pass without question, and she traveled deep into the roads past Ortan Thaig to the Dead Trenches.

She could sense the darkspawn approaching. She knew they could sense her, too. And she saw them. Hurlocks and genlocks were crowding across the ancient home of the Legion of the Dead. She grinned broadly, sword gleaming in her hands. There would be no turning back today.  
Letting out a great yell, Kira ran full-speed at the darkspawn. The end was coming, and she would take out as many of these vile creatures as she could before she succumbed.

"Will I see you in the afterlife?" she asked herself.

And then it all went white.

**Epilogue**  
_  
All she felt was warmth. Release. Whatever hold the taint had over her was gone. She walked tentatively, taking in her surroundings. It was a paradise._

_And there he was, young and handsome as ever. Would he recognize her as the old woman she had become? She was running now, feeling tears well in her eyes._

_"Alistair!" she cried._

_"Hello, love, it's about time you got here."_


End file.
